Mouthing Off

Asia like it: The Pacific Rim influence isn't new to Denver--chefs here have been fusing East and West for nearly a decade now, with mixed results. Generally, the restaurants that were successful got there by giving traditional American and European dishes an Asian accent, gently applying Pacific Rim cooking concepts and ingredients rather than reworking cuisines entirely.

The now-defunct Transalpin, which for years held down the fort at 416 East Seventh Avenue (now home of JV's The Cork), was acknowledged as one of Denver's first fusion spots; when the fusion fad really arrived, though, it exposed Transalpin's recipes as outdated. And then there was China Cowboy, an eclectic--and too large--spot at 233 East Colfax Avenue (once filled by the Quorum) that chef Billy Lam opened several years ago. Although Lam had gotten lucky with the small roster of Western-enhanced dishes he added to the Vietnamese favorites at T-Wa Inn (555 South Federal Boulevard), he was fighting a losing battle at China Cowboy. The space was lousy, and the kitchen couldn't pull off the overly ambitious dishes night after night (a problem shared by 1515 Market Grille, reviewed above). Lam, by the way, is still plying some of the best noodle bowls in town at his Chef's Noodle House, 10400 East Sixth Avenue--a location as out of the way and tiny as China Cowboy's was central and huge.

But Denver has had several effective, smaller-scale marriages of Asian-influenced fare. At New Orient, 10253 East Iliff Avenue in Aurora, chef/owner Sue Smith concocts the most outlandish-sounding Vietnamese-based dishes, but they work; Michael's of Cherry Creek, 2710 East Third Avenue, matches its majestic decor with such tempters as dashi-steamed mussels and taro-root-crusted red snapper; Q's, 2115 13th Street in Boulder, a revamped old favorite in the Hotel Boulderado, manages to come up with innovative fare from around the globe on a regular basis (see "Think Big," September 3); 240 Union, at 240 Union Boulevard in Lakewood, consistently serves one of the most imaginative and perceptive fusion rosters around; and even the Wellshire Inn, the beautiful old Tudor-style mansion at 3333 South Colorado Boulevard that has had chef problems in the past, seems to be on an even keel and sailing toward the Pacific.

Still, my favorite fusion destination would have to be Papillon, at 250 Josephine Street, where three years ago chef/owner Radek Cerny introduced a menu that he describes as "French with Thai influences," a focus that has continued with Cerny's trusted executive chef, Frank Kerstetter. This eatery serves some truly inspired items--the lobster ravioli in a light saffron ginger sauce and the tuna carpaccio with Thai vinaigrette and capers immediately come to mind--but perhaps the most intensely flavored Papillon dish is the appetizer of mussels roasted in Thai red curry broth with cilantro and lemon.

If you want to re-create the dish at home--and trust me, you do--you'll need to make a trip to Wild Oats or an Asian market to secure the required red curry paste, galangal, lemongrass and shrimp paste. Back home, you'll also need to find some extra time: The curry sauce is not something you're going to make at the end of a weekday 9-to-5 gig. But for company or a special meal, it's well worth the work. The following recipe provided by Papillon makes four appetizer portions; I threw the whole thing in a huge noodle bowl over rice vermicelli for a heavenly meal that thoroughly satisfied two adults and two kids.

The sauce should have the consistency of a broth, Kerstetter says. "When you get to the stage where you're simmering the cream and coconut milk, it's going to get fairly thick," he cautions. "You can use canned chicken stock to thin it out, and you may use up to a cup of lemon juice to adjust the flavor at the end." Done right, the dish attains the Asian ideal of ingredient equilibrium. "You're looking for a balance between the sour lemon juice, the sweetness of the sugar and the hot chile flakes," Kerstetter adds. "Really taste it at the end to see if that's what you have, and then don't be afraid to slowly make adjustments."

Heat sesame oil in large, heavy skillet or Dutch oven; add green onions, garlic and ginger and saute for one minute. Add the mussels and three cups of red curry sauce. Cover and simmer until mussels open. Adjust seasonings with lemon juice, salt and sugar. Pour into four large bowls and serve.

LoDo lowdown: LoDo's suddenly cooking with lots of Asian fare. P.F. Chang's, set to debut October 5 at 1415 15th Street (the space formerly filled by Calvin's), isn't the only place 1515 Market Grille needs to worry about--although the five-year-old Phoenix-based company is certainly capable of taking a big, big bite out of downtown's restaurant business and will soon have the money to fund a long war of attrition. P.F. Chang's China Bistro Inc. recently filed an initial public offering; the company wants to expand from its current 15 units to 36 by the end of 1999. Of the nine states where the corporation has stores, only Texas, California and Colorado are slated for multiple eateries.

Paul Fleming founded the company in 1993 with Philip Chiang; it reported $32.9 million in revenues for the six months ending June 28, according to an August 3 report in the Phoenix Business Journal. The Park Meadows site, which opened in August 1997, has been posting record earnings for the chain--and people in the restaurant biz think the LoDo restaurant, scheduled to open later this month, will not only challenge homegrown eateries but also prove capable of taking a serious chunk out of the Cheesecake Factory's crowds.

Not that there aren't other contenders. Just a block away from both the future P.F. Chang's and 1515 Market Grille is the Japanese Nikko, which opened this past summer at 1448 Market Street in the space formerly occupied by Fettoush (it's owned by the same guys). Around the corner, at 1318 15th Street, is Hi Ricky, a Pan-Asian eatery that debuted last month and counts quick serving times and a heavy Thai influence among its assets. The concept comes from Chicago, where three Hi Ricky noodle shops that wanted to go public hooked up with Lonestar Steakhouse founder Terry Brewer and On the Border founder David Franklin, whose success with growing chains to a certain size and then going public with them has been well-documented.

According to executive chef Patrick Moser, the owners of the Chicago Hi Rickys sold their recipes and name to Brewer and Franklin, who brought in original Lonestar manager Guy Lupton as a partner. The trio created a different logo and expanded the menu beyond the noodle-bowl theme to include more complicated entrees. But even though the dishes are more complex, the eatery still promises four- to seven-minute waits for lunch to arrive and just seven to nine minutes at dinner.

Speed is also what Billy Downs, founder of B.D.'s Mongolian Barbecue, guarantees from the nine stores in his Michigan-based chain. Downs hopes to add twelve more by the end of '99--and that includes the one scheduled to open at 1620 Wazee Street within the next few months. Downs is credited with opening the first Mongolian barbecue restaurant in the United States, which he did in 1992 in Royal Oak, a suburb of Detroit. Since then, however, Mongolian-barbecue spots have opened in cities across the country, including Denver--so B.D.'s is not, as its PR people have suggested, "introducing Denver diners to the concept of interactive dining."

Denverites already know how to pick out their own ingredients, add a sauce and spices and carry everything over to a chef, who then throws it all onto a steel grill over high heat. And if they want to do it before B.D.'s opens, they should head to Lim's Mongolian Barbecue, at 1530 Blake Street, before B.D.'s kills that modest, longtime LoDo eatery faster than you can say "Genghis Khan."

And just in case that's not enough Asian food for you, you'll soon have another choice--although it will be several blocks from LoDo's eastern limits. Late this fall, Wolfgang Puck will be opening a place in Denver Pavilions that may or may not be called Asian Cafe but will most certainly be Puck's take on the cuisine.

Forget what's going on overseas: The Asian economy obviously is alive and well in LoDo.